Ubuntu GNOME 15.10 running on Yoga Pro 2 with HiDPI support

Ubuntu GNOME 15.10 running on Yoga Pro 2 with HiDPI and touch screen support








See my previous post on how to install Ubuntu on Yoga Pro 2 for Ubuntu GNOME 15.04.

I think Ubuntu GNOME is the best flavor of Ubuntu if you are running HiDPI mode 3200x1200. All screen captured images are at HiDPI resolution.

Touch support

Ubuntu gnome 2.16 support for touch screen is pretty good on the desktop shell.
Chrome browser version 48 and up support touch screen better than Firefox without any plugins.
The windows key on the screen panel works as the windows key on the keyboard.
Screen rotation does not work on 15.10 by default, but if you install gnome 2.18 on ubuntu 15.10 you can use screen rotation since is now supported by default.

Yoga Keys boot key


F12 - Boot menu to select booting from usb drive
F2 - Bios Menu

Power down the computer. Push the “novo” button ounce or press F2 while booting, to force the computer to enter into BIOS menus. Disable “Security Boot” and disable “Lenovo Fast Boot”. Leave UEFI option turned on since Ubuntu supports UEFI out of the box.

I also enabled the Functions keys in the BIOS by default but this is a personal preference.

Create to boot USB disk


Format your flash drive with a single FAT32 partition.  Copy the contents of the Ubuntu ISO (use your favorite archiving tool - 7zip for example) or CD to it.  Use a recent 64-bit Ubuntu version.

That's all you need to do.  No need to install a boot loader or use special tool.

You can also use Ubuntu tool to create a UEFI bootable flash drive.

Note: Avoid using something like Unetbootin to create a UEFI-bootable flash drive, it does not work.


 

Install

Create a USB boot drive with another Ubuntu machine, plug the USB stick on it. Use the USB 2.0 port on the Yoga pro 2 to plug the usb key, I had problems with the usb 3 port using a usb 3 stick, seems to me it was un-mounted during the installation process, when installer was setting up the drives.

Select the partition size for Ubuntu let the UbuntuGnome installer resize your windows partition. Grub will have an option to boot windows after the install is done and will setup Ubuntu as the default OS.

Note:
The default options will work fine, there is no need to setup custom partitions. But if you want to setup new partitions here is what I did. I deleted all windows partitions since I don't run windows and created efi 512 Mb partition (this is where the efi code looks for the kernel to be loaded on boot, the installer allows you to create this partition with a special type), I also created a swap partition of 9Gb since I have 8Gb of physical memory, a 15Gb partition for the OS "/" and a the rest for home "/home".

After installation


UbuntuGnome ships with gnome 3.16 and will boot with full resolution HiDPI, support enabled.

You can change the resolution in the settings to another resolution, in case you don't want to use HiDPI, select 1920x1080 that should give you a good scale ratio on the Yoga Pro 2.

What works


Almost everything works great out of the box, there isn't many changes you need to do.

Sound works

Options keys for sound work, side sound button up/down works.

Screen

Everything works, brightness, resolution changes, even the option keys to turn off the screen and brightness. Video driver work great

Camera

Works fine.

Sleep

No issues.

Keyboard

Keyboard background light works, menu key works, Special Fn key mute, volume up, volume down, turn off screen, refresh, brightness up and down, menu key, keyboard light, side buttons for up and down volume, air-plane mode, work as expected.

Fn key to show all screens works but it is a shortcut to Activities menu so you don't have to use the touch pad.

Wifi, bluetooth, USB3 works

No issues.

Does not work out of the box

The side mute button, Fn key to disable track-pad function.

HiDPI support

UbuntuGnome supports HiDPI since version 14.10.

Tweaks to make some Apps work better with HiDPI 


Firefox, Google Chrome, Chromium, Cheese, totem, vlc work great in HiDPI.

sudo apt-get install google-chrome-stable

If you use a HiDPI monitor such as Yoga Pro 2 display together with another monitor, you can use AutoHiDPI add-on in order to automatically adjust layout.css.devPixelsPerPx setting for the active screen. Set Pixel Ratio to 2x and HiDPI screen with to 3200, on the plug-in settings page.

If you use the touch screen you should install Grab and Drag add-on to make Firefox more tablet friendly.

Chromium supports the touchscreen better than firefox if you wish to use it with the touchscreen Chromium is the better choice.

Run chromium at device scale in case it starts with big fonts.

chromium-browser --force-device-scale-factor=2

For Thunderbird see Firefox. To access about:config, go to Edit → Preferences → Advanced → Config editor.

Skype

Skype is a Qt program, and needs to be configured separately. You cannot change the DPI setting for it, but at least you can change font size. Install qt4 and run qtconfig-qt4 to do it.

Clementine still show interface with icons that are not scaled properly.

Console

Configure larger font on tty console, leave all settings as they are, but for font select Terminus, and on the last one, where you can chose the size 16x32, and then reboot.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

Reference: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI

Ubuntu extras and tools

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

### media players, gnome and compression tools [lots of packages for these]
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gxine libdvdread4 icedax tagtool easytag id3tool lame nautilus-script-audio-convert libmad0 mpg321 libavcodec-extra

### DVD support
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

### Gnome utilities
sudo apt-get install adwaita-icon-theme-full vlc clementine minitube bijiben polari gnome-weather epiphany-browser p7zip-rar p7zip-full unace unrar zip unzip sharutils rar uudeview mpack arj cabextract file-roller htop dconf-editor gnome-backgrounds gnome-bluetooth gnome-boxes gnome-calculator gnome-calendar gnome-clocks gnome-color-manager gnome-contacts gnome-control-center gnome-dictionary gnome-disk-utility gnome-documents gnome-logs gnome-maps gnome-music gnome-online-accounts gnome-photos gnome-session gnome-settings-daemon gnome-shell gnome-shell-extensions gnome-sound-recorder gnome-sushi gnome-system-monitor gnome-terminal gnome-themes-standard gnome-tweak-tool gnome-weather frogr vinagre ghex

### Simple Games
sudo apt-get install gnome-chess five-or-more four-in-a-row gnome-klotski gnome-nibbles gnome-robots gnome-sudoku gnome-mahjongg gnome-tetravex iagno lightsoff quadrapassel swell-foop

### Gnome Tools
sudo apt-get install gnome-characters

### Gnome development tools
sudo apt-get install gnome-builder glade gitg ghex

Gnome 2.18 [not recomended]

Adds support for built-in screen rotation and small increments for touch screen support, but breaks bluetooth on ubuntu 15.10. Everything else seems to work fine.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3-staging
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

USB 3 ethernet adapter


I got a USB 3 Ethernet adapter at frys, it works great. I'm also using a SIIG USB 3 hub with power adapter to plug a logitech USB sound bar, the USB 3 Ethernet adapter, a wireless mouse dongle and a external disk 60 Gb SSD.

Links to the hardware:

http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Multimedia-Gigabit-Ethernet-UE3000/dp/B00DWXV4SY

http://www.amazon.com/SIIG-7-Port-USB-3-0-Adapter/dp/B00AAHLWA0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404719193&sr=8-1&keywords=siig+usb+3+hub

Intel Video drivers [not recommended]

Follow the link https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads.

Wifi network card upgrade [not recommended, only do it if you need dual band wifi]


I also upgraded the wifi network card to a intel dual band, link to amazon and Youtube video.

Spec: 7260NGW Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 802.11ac, Dual Band, 2x2 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.0

sudo lspci -v
01:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 (rev 6b)    Subsystem: Intel Corporation Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260
    Capabilities: [154] Vendor Specific Information: ID=cafe Rev=1 Len=014
    Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi

Works great.

References

Ubuntu GNOME 15.04 running on Yoga Pro 2 with HiDPI support
Ubuntu, Kubuntu, UbunutGnome 14.04 support for HiRes in Yoga Pro 2
Ubuntu 14.04 running in yoga pro 2
UbuntuGnome 14.04 running on yoga pro 2 
Kubuntu14.04 running in yoga pro 2

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